Today's statistics from the EEF manufacturers association on the take-up of the apprenticeship levy, introduced one year ago, are expected to paint a bleak picture of a flagship policy that was meant to transform the skills base in the UK.
If that is the case, the headlines will be predictable. Dark talk of staggering falls, apprenticeship disasters, massive drop offs, nightmare scenarios, and all manner of forecasts that show skills in precipitous decline.
The response from the captains of industry will be equally predictable: a familiar moan at what they see as the failure of schools and governments to provide them with the workforce they need. They have been at it for decades.
Read more: Apprenticeship starts drop as levy criticised as "unfit for purpose"
Yes, the levy can be hard to navigate. Indeed, if you believe the British Chambers of Commerce, it might even obstruct businesses from investing in the skills they need.
If thats the case, this could put a brake on the digital skills training that is needed to equip us for the robotics and automation revolution that will drive productivity growth.
But is it true? Not universally. And certainly not in Rotherham and Manchester, home to two partnerships between innovative training providers and smart employers who are using the levy to accelerate towards a very different destination: a pool of skilled engineers working at the cutting edge.
In Manchester, Code Nation is an innovative new training provider that is upskilling the next generation of software developers. Their success is down to a willingness to engage with, and listen to, their industrial partners.
Intensely immersive training at the front end of the programme is producing remarkable results. For them, the levy is no barrier to employers looking for coding skills.
Across the Pennines in Rotherham, the Advanced Manufacturing Research Centres training centre is also bucking the trend, with record numbers of apprentices and employers who are using the levy to upskill their existing workforce, or train new ones.
Built on the site of the 1984 Battle of Orgreave, the centre is a beacon of hope, rather than a scene of despair.
Thats because, four years ago, we talked to local companies, including the SMEs that make up the backbone of British manufacturing, to see what they wanted from apprenticeships.
They told us the skills they needed; what a working week should look like; and how the curriculum should be designed. We invited them to become members of an industry board.
A year later, David Cameron pledged the new levy to help to deliver three million more apprenticeships before 2020. He should have come to Rotherham first and learned how to do it properly. Had he done so, it might have saved the current Tory administration the embarrassment of missing the ambitious target he set them.
Today, close to 300 companies and organisations have sent over 1,000 apprentices to the AMRC training centre to become the workforce of tomorrow. Toyota sends them from the Midlands, and even the University of Cambridge wants to send them north, because they know we turn good students into great apprentices.
Engineers like to measure things. For those we work with, using the levy is a no-brainer: it boosts performance and productivity. That is why the University of Sheffield is now providing degree apprenticeships to meet increasing demand from young people for an alternative, debt-free route to a Russell Group university degree, and from employers for higher level skills and talents.
If it can be done at the scene of a historic industrial battleground like Orgreave, where hope and ambition once died and have since been resurrected, surely it can be done elsewhere?
Read more: The apprenticeship levy needs urgent reform, IoD poll suggests
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